Superdistorted Seattlerock hungry and fuzzy as ever
Before grunge turned into the grace and pain of St. Kurt and the meat-head oomph of Nickelback, it was garage rock. More specifically, it was Mudhoney, and they were really drunk. “We wanna get loaded!” runs the motorcycle-flick sample that precedes “In ‘n’ Out of Grace,” and on Sub Pop’s deluxe 20th anniversary reissue of Superfuzz Bigmuff, Mudhoney still sounds like it: loaded and wanting more, wanting the world. Anchored by impeccably rude singles (“Touch Me I’m Sick,” “Sweet Young Thing Ain’t Sweet No More”) and the endlessly squalling distortion pedals of Steve Turner and Mark Arm, this two-disc set doubles the already-expanded CD Sub Pop issued in 1990. Filled out with demos, a Sonic Youth cover, a contemporaneous live set from Berlin and a radio session from Santa Barbara (which concludes with a feedback-soaked 14-minute “Dead Love”), the Seattle quartet hammers with a youthful abandon that keeps it miraculously unscathed.